


Born For The Grave

by Diaph



Category: The 100 (TV)
Genre: Angst, Clarke Grieving, Clarke Griffin Grieving, F/F, Letting The Girl Go, Lexa Dies (The 100), Sad, Tragedy, Wanheda Clarke Griffin, letting go, wanheda
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-20
Updated: 2019-09-20
Packaged: 2020-11-02 10:10:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,488
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20710028
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Diaph/pseuds/Diaph
Summary: She is the commander of death, and death is her blood right.





	Born For The Grave

It was the aftermath of an orgasm when she felt most uncomfortable. The silence. The clarity. The stifling closeness of the other body invading the warmth of her own. Clarke felt words turn into wishbones and dig into her windpipe every time she tried to think of something to say once the fizzing of nerve endings began to wane. Clarke had learned to draw that part out. To close her eyes hard. To touch the back of the boy’s kneecap briefly and cling there in order to forget for just a little while longer the particular muscle memory of Lexa’s spine and all the intricate dips to be found along the ridges like bricks in the building of a place she once lived. 

Once in a while, Clarke succeeded in forgetting—and for a single, delicious, moment Lexa never existed at all. It was cognitive dissonance. It was unhealthy. It wasn’t productive, and Clarke didn’t need it to be. Sometimes, cognitive dissonance was all that could be had.

Now, the muscular arms that nuzzled around her began to jostle, the breathing comforter growing restless, it was time to crack her open eyes and remember again. She was finding it easier and easier to forget her pains these days, the boy was sending her soft.

“Five more minutes?” Clarke whispered tiredly. 

She looked over the ball of her shoulder and instinctively slipped her hand backwards into the warm emptiness of the blankets her human distraction had vacated.

“Not today,” Malin replied with a brief smile, then finished tugging the warm grey shirt back over his head. When he was finished, his hands appearing at the end of each sleeve, he shook his long dreadlocks and threw his head forward to gather them back into a messy knot off of his face.

Clarke was entranced with the way he moved, with the way he smiled, with the way those smiles were reserved for the excited children he slung up on his broad shoulders after he returned from the Capitol, the procurement of a solid working horse for the farming fields, and once in a while if there was a good joke to be had. In that regard Malin was easy to like, he was a simple man of simple pleasures with responsibilities to his people—Clarke found a mutual sort of empathy within that burden. It made soft encounters like this easier to be had.

Indra suddenly appeared at the flap of the tent, brooding and furious. When her eyes caught them, when the realisation of what she had wandered into broke across her face, she blinked uncomfortably and looked in every direction of the room for something to focus her eyes on.

“You’re keeping the convoy waiting,” Indra finally cleared her throat.

“Sorry Auntie.” Malin buckled his trousers and hopped around for his other boot, “Wanheda and I, we were—”

“Stop talking.” Indra raised her palm with a displeased grind of her jaw, “Go and see your mother before we leave.”

“Clarke,” Malin turned and offered her a wry smile as he picked up his other boot. “Next time, I promise.”

Clarke remained silent and continued to dress herself as he awkwardly moved around his aunt and left the tent, with the blankets wrapped around her chest she fiddled and pulled the top over her head. Indra didn’t walk away, instead she hesitated and stayed by the door, trying to find the right words to say.

“Is there something I can help you with?” Clarke offered her a look.

“He is my favourite nephew,” Indra replied dumbly and scratched her head.

“And?”

“You do not have my blessing.”

“You’re worried I’ll kill him too?” Clarke allowed herself a bitter exhale.

“Yes,” the general agreed immediately. “I am worried that he will fall in love with you and pay with his life because of it. He is my favourite nephew, be careful with him, Wanheda.”

Indra left. In the silence, in the overwhelming stifling quiet, Clarke exhaled a shaky breath and allowed the weight of those words to sit heavy on her stomach. It was enough to make her chew and grit and struggle against the pain, but struggle and persevere she did.

Indra was right.

It was time to let Malin go.

***

Six winters on the ground taught her that spring was a sorely awaited treasure to be clung to dearly. The seventh winter began to die as it had done the six times before and yet this time she wished it would hang on just a little longer, that the trees would remain skeletons and the river stay solid for a few more months yet. The world was always peaceful when it was cold, it allowed for more wondrous distractions when there was little else to fight and die for.

Charlotte slipped mucky arms around her belly, allowing her entire weight to rest on the saviour’s spine and shoulders. Clarke smiled and remained hunched over the great wooden table where the plans for spring laid scattered, focused and entirely distracted simultaneously with the exhausted pale creature resting on her back. She tried not to get too caught up in these things, her inability to stop while she was ahead was the thing that got Malin killed in the end. The north took responsibility for it, strung his body up above the highest gate as a call of war. The war lasted for all of two days, Clarke made sure of that, and she spared no woman or child.

“You missed me,” Charlotte exhaled happily and made Clarke’s neck cool with the chill of her nose.

“I tried my best not to,” Clarke chuckled to herself and slowly turned around until the girl was in her arms. “The children wouldn’t let me forget though, they came to the medical bay every day to ask when you were coming back from the scouting trip.”

At that Charlotte rolled her eyes knowingly. “So you missed me?” She asked and began to remove the scarf and winter accoutrements, rubbing her hands together for warmth.

“Eh. Maybe,” Clarke conceded with a small shrug that earned her a slapped arm. “Alright!” She laughed and rubbed her stinging shoulder, “I missed you too. Happy now?”

“Very,” Charlotte softly smiled, her stare never losing the commander of death for a moment as she blew into her palms. “The scouting trip was good. You were right about the water people, Clarke. Luna is willing to take all of the children so the siblings can stay together.”

“I told you she would help. We just had to wait for the water to unfreeze.” Clarke took off her glasses and simultaneously rubbed her eyes. She wandered over to the armchairs where a still warm canteen of tea sat on the small table adjacent. The girl followed her.

Charlotte smirked as she sat down, “I’m not going to tell you that you were right again. Your ego won’t take it.”

“Oh come on.” Clarke raised an eyebrow as the mugs were poured. “Spoil me?”

“Never,” she taunted with that long beautiful smile.

Charlotte had somehow made it to Arkadia in the autumn with a group of thirty-two shunned children that she had collected from the outer edges of the thirteen clans. The children were all afflicted in some way, whether it be malformed bones or some sort of disability that saw them abandoned by their villages. Some were younger, some were older, and some had tiny infants strapped to their backs. At first, Clarke turned them away. The ground had hardened her heart to outsiders over the years, to people who weren’t her first and only. The winter would be violent and the poor crop yields meant that kindness and favours were in short-supply too.

And the thing that still infuriates her the most now is that even then Charlotte refused to fight, to demand some sort of meeting, to punish Clarke the way every other great woman she ever known had done at some point or another. Instead, Charlotte gathered the children and made no fuss—they even sang songs together as they marched into the distance towards the certain death of the coming winter. It made the journey all the more frustrating in Clarke’s mind when her sensibilities forced her to jump in the rover and bring them all back of her own volition.

“I think I’m going to miss the rugrats,” Clarke said quietly with a frown, “Honestly, I don’t think Raven will let you take Yana without a fight.” She couldn’t help but smile at how quickly the pair had warmed to each other, limping around together with tools in tow and a long list of odd jobs to be done.

Clarke’s heart briefly drifted to the thought of how much she would miss Charlotte in turn. The woman had quickly made herself an essential part of the leader’s day, even if it was just for small talk and smuggled tins of barely-warm tea as they wandered the blanket of snow outside. Somewhere, deep down, Clarke hated herself for pressing forward and grabbing the soft freckles of her cheeks for that first kiss. It had been years since she had been made to remember Lexa this vividly, this hungrily, this regretfully, but knowing the pain of falling in love with a woman who had a tribe of her own to take care of made the commander alive and well in her mind.

Maybe that was what made loving Charlotte so easy.

“Do you think they will be happy with Luna?” Charlotte asked quite seriously.

“What’s not to love about the sea? Besides, you’ll be there with them,” Clarke shrugged it off and glugged the sweet sugary drink.

Charlotte inhaled and forced a tight smile, “I worry for them, they’re all my children.”

“There’s no need for that, by all accounts they have a good mother.”

“Do you believe that?” Charlotte raised a curious brow, “I’ve never thought of myself as a leader.”

“I once knew a woman who ruled the entire world…” Clarke stopped and blinked. “Yep, I knew her,” she swallowed painfully and said no more.

“I remind you of her?”

“You remind me of a boy she made me kill.”

“You’ve never told me that story?”

“And I never will,” Clarke whispered with a rueful smile. “So, I’m guessing you and the children will be leaving soon?” The question was tinged with a hint of sadness.

“Luna was kind, she offered to send an envoy when the weather is warmer so the children can travel together. Maybe a month or so if we’re lucky?”

“A tiny herd off to sea.” Clarke smiled, “You’ll be happy there and… well… missed here.”

Charlotte finally frowned and found the words. “I won’t be going with them. I won’t be strong enough to travel in a month,” she hung her head and rubbed the back of her neck. “I did what I need to do… I found them a home, Clarke. My lungs lasted long enough for that.”

Clarke stalled and held her breath. It was no secret Charlotte was afflicted too, although it was a truth that Clarke refused most days. One that could not be synthesised in any sort of meaningful way because of course, of course she would have to love another girl born for the grave. Of course. 

Such was her birth right.

***

In her mind, they were all alive. It was how she made her thirties bearable. It was how she made it through the days, through the nights, through the quietness between one war and the next, imagining them all from time to time in different universes, kinder ones. Finn would have been an engineer, a terrible one who broke more things than he fixed. Wells would have kept a farm by the southern river and removed himself from the conflicts of the ground, would probably have half a dozen children by now too. Malin an ambassador. Charlotte a mother. Lexa… that was where Clarke became stuck. That was where her pain unravelled into something no longer tangible or logical.

“So, the old commander,” Maddie paused as her horse caught up in trots and jolty strides. “Did she love you back?”

Clarke grinned ruefully and rubbed the sweat off her forehead. It would be at least another three hours until they reached Polis, until the city was given a new tiny heda who had been raised better and kinder than the ones who came before. That was Clarke’s gift to this earth, a leader untouched by the beastiality of violence. Still, three hours was a long time for questions.

“No, she didn’t love me back,” Clarke answered honestly.

It earned a perplexed look. Clarke rolled her eyes and didn’t want to get into these matters but knew, wholeheartedly, she would inevitably do just that. There was a comfort that came with speaking about Lexa, warts and all. It was the only time the commander felt alive in her mind anymore, the only time she could fathom what Lexa might look like now, well into her thirties, lines on her eternally smooth face, perhaps a little sprout of silver in her braids. It was by far her most elaborate form of self harm.

“The commander put no one above duty.” Clarke sighed. “The commander… her love language was acts of service. I loved her, she did her best to love me back, and that’s that.”

“She died for you, isn’t that love?” Maddie asked innocently, and it earned a withering look.

“She didn’t die for me, she could never that small or that ordinary.” Clarke inhaled sharply. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time. It happens, make sure you’re smarter when you take the throne.”

“So don’t fall in love with anyone?”

“No. Fall in love with everyone, fall in love with the entire world.” Clarke emphasised with a deep nod. “Just make sure you’re smart about it, that’s all.”

***

In her dreams, there was a magnolia field, caught somewhere beyond right and wrong. It was where she kept the dead. It was where the lost sprouted from the ground like flowers in bloom that would always remain just so, untouched by reality, untouched by death, safe in the tiny bubble universe of the death keeper’s slumbering mind. Malin’s dreadlocks were woven with small white flowers, his skin glowing from the warm sun, always happy to give advice when Clarke’s mind was busy with the politics of her world. Charlotte was well, was alive, was untouched by the tubes and wires and mechanical machines that the sky people had used to keep her body pumping and pushing beyond what was decent — despite her own pleas for the opposite. And despite all the death and war, that was perhaps the thing Clarke felt most guilty about, keeping a woman stuck on the cusp of life because of her own selfish inability to lose another. In her dreams, Charlotte forgave her for breaking promises that had been made in the dead of night. In her dreams, Charlotte forgave it all.

And in her dreams, beyond the magnolia field, there was a tower that clambered out from the earth and prodded its head above the pink clouds. It was a place that Clarke never ventured to, a place that even in the safety of her own sleep was cursed and forbidden. Occasionally, just before the end of a good dream, her eyes would catch sight of a shape moving on the balcony, a small flash of red blowing in the wind, the indistinguishable face looking down on her curiously. Clarke always looked away, and for fifteen years that was the state of things. Terrified of her love even when she was the one conjuring her presence.

Aware that she was asleep, aware of the pilgrimage, Clarke clambered the twisting stairs one by one, floor by floor, her fingers dancing over the drawings of memories that covered the brick walls. Her life was etched out in charcoal and moss, from the mountain she conquered to the stars she once fell from. By the twelfth floor, her thighs became tired from climbing, which felt peculiar in her mind because Clarke remained distinctly aware that none of this was real, and the fact it wasn’t real was a cruel burden that could not be put down for a single moment. Lexa was gone. Lexa had been gone for some time. And, yet, still, Clarke could not put the burden of her grief down for one tiny moment, awake or asleep.

In the highest room, a woman sat nestled in the twisting branches of a wooden throne, her dagger twisting in the arm of her seat, thighs crossed as though she had been kept impatiently waiting for some time.

“Hello, Heda.” Clarke sighed and closed the door behind herself.

“Clarke kom Skaikru,” the commander whispered with something faintly resembling a smile. “We meet again.”

Clarke nodded and paused, then nodded again. She knew the things she wanted to say, the things she wanted to scream, the things she wanted to shout and hiss and sob and curl up over. It wasn’t possible now. Lexa was sat there with that look in her eyes, that one that Clarke had almost forgotten, that patient, languid look that said, “Whatever you need to say, I am strong enough to take it.” And it took all of the adrenalin out of her blood.

“You didn’t deserve to be the hero of my story,” Clarke started and stopped, aware of the sharpness of her tone, aware of her legs ignoring her brain and pacing around on braced knees. “You… you made me the villain of my own story, and I’ll never—” She stopped again, teeth in the plumpness of her bottom lip. “I’ll never forgive you for that, I don’t even know where to begin to start.”

“I made you exactly what you needed to be to survive this world, Clarke.” Lexa lifted her brows and stood from the throne. “Is that why I am the one you cannot allow yourself to grieve?”

“Maddie is dead!” Clarke spat the words coldly. “And you failed, Lexa, because I  _ cannot _ survive that! I refuse to!”

It was a death that sat above all others in her mind, to lose a daughter, to lose a legacy of peace, and to make matters worse, it was a death that Maddie welcomed with open arms. The battle against the invaders was one that could never be won, and so to trade her life for the safety of her people was a decision that took no need for pause. When news reached Clarke of what had happened, it was perhaps the only death that she knew wholeheartedly was entirely her own fault. She made Maddie too soft, too selfless, too good for this world. She made her for the grave, because perhaps that was all the great Wanheda was good for.

“She died well,” Lexa said softly. “She died for something, which is better than dying for—”

“She was fifteen years old, don’t you dare give me the glory speech!” Clarke continued to pace.

“Then why did you come if not to hear reason!” The Heda suddenly became precisely that, a commander, a warborne woman who did not suffer foolishness easily.

Clarke stopped and hung her head.

“I came because I have been running away from you for fifteen years, and still, all this time later, I do not know how to let you go! Every death brings me right back to your feet!”

“I’m sorry, Clarke,” Lexa whispered and stepped closer. “I’m sorry you lost them, but we were all born for the grave, everyone but you, because that is your birthright.”

“I miss you more than I can bare but I have to let you go, Lexa.” Clarke choked and stood taller. “You have haunted me for all of these years and I need a new story, I need a life that doesn’t involve your death repeating again and again.”

“My love, you are the one who has haunted yourself.” The commander’s weathered hands found each one of her biceps. “You are absolved, you have lost enough, and you deserve a soft epilogue.”

Clarke kissed her, she pushed forward and she kissed her so hard that it took the commander off balance. It was a flurry and a sob, a thousand kisses and a thousand heartbreaks, all at once. Clarke held her wrists so tight, so fondly, so desperate to never let them go.

“You were wrong, Clarke,” Lexa whispered into her mouth. “I did it because I love you, I was there because I love you, and I do not regret it.”

Clarke nodded and exhaled a shaky breath. “Goodbye, Lexa.”

“May we meet in a better world than the one we found each other in, my love.” Lexa nodded and pressed against her forehead.


End file.
